Her, finished in 2013, is based on an emotional story about a writer who finds himself in love with an AI, or artificial

intelligence being. The story is set in the “near future”, where technology has become advanced and an even more integral part of everyday life than it is now. The writer’s name is Theodore Twambly (played by Joaquin Phoenix), who works for a company that produces handwritten letters. Theo was recently left by his wife, which we see in flashbacks throughout the movie, and he was left longing for love. This void is filled by an artificial intelligence, called an “operating system” in the movie, whose name is Samantha. Samantha was curated just for Theo, knowing him inside and out. Their friendship develops deeper, eventually turning into a romantic relationship. However, the romantic relationship isn’t as easy going and simple as it might seem. The turning point of the film is when Theo’s wife tells him that being in a relationship with a computer is strange, that he obviously can’t handle real, human emotions. You could definitely see the ending coming from a mile away… but I’ll leave it up to you to watch it.

The film starts with just a black screen, with the title “her”. The music overlayed some type of “technology” sound,

introducing the idea that the film is focused on technology. Afterward, the next shot is a close-up shot of the main character, who is centered in the middle of the screen. This shot lasts for about 45 seconds, with the main character reciting a monologue (this monologue introduces his job, as he was reading back a letter he wrote). The third shot then changes to a wide shot view of an office, where overlaying audio presents the idea that almost every person in the office has their own computer that they speak to, although the reason is still unknown. The main character leaves the office, with an earbud in. He speaks to the earbud, and it responds to what he says. He asks it to play a melancholy song, which it does. The voice in this earbud is male, monotone, and simple. This melancholy song represents his depression, his loneliness. These feelings are reinforced in the shot, which is a very wide angle shot of him walking through an open part of the city, with people around him, sticking out off of the grey cityscape and rain clouds. The idea of darkness and misery is repeated throughout the film, when he feels alone, the shot tends to be darker with gloomy colors. Often, the film placed him in areas with a lot of extras, singling him out, showing how he feels so alone even though he is surrounded by people. As the movie progressed, the shots were showing more and more people who were also donning an earbud, who were also speaking with their own personal AI. This allowed the audience to see that he wasn’t as alone as he was when he first started talking to Samantha. Another thing this movie does is flashback montages. One that I remember really well is where Theo’s previous relationship with Catherine is introduced. The lighting was warm, and the setting was in a cozy little apartment with a balcony that looked over a city during the summer. This temperature lighting change and the difference between the seasons creates a stark contrast between when Theo was happy, and when he lost the thing that made him happy. Most of the shots in the film were stabilized, with little to no camera movement. However, there was a scene in which Theo and his date got drunk, that was the first time that I noticed that the camera was a little shaky (which makes sense because they were no longer sober, and therefore their vision wouldn’t be as stable). Something I liked about the film was the transition shots they used. Most of the time, the editors chose to use a city shot to fill up time that would have been eaten up by showing transportation or another shot of Theo in bed. Another way they covered up a transition was dollying in, which made the cut less awkward when it cut to a close-up shot of Theo. To introduce a new conversation, the DP would choose to do a wide angle shot of both of the actors, and then close into each character individually. Sometimes there was one really long shot of just Theo, without any camera movements or anything interesting, but then there were times when the angles changed and the camera moved very quickly, which allowed the viewer to understand Theo’s anxiety in the moment. One thing there was a lot of in the film that I didn’t really like was the lens flares. They were used too often, and sometimes in places where it was just inconvenient and annoying. Another thing I didn’t like was the b-roll type shots that they added in. Sometimes it seemed like they were just trying to cover up a really long shot of just Theo talking, but it didn’t really make sense and was honestly distracting from what I was supposed to be paying attention to. For example, there was a close-up shot of a manhole cover while Theo was talking about his feelings with Samantha, it was unimportant to have such a close-up shot of that. Instead, they could have gone with a wide angled setting shot where Theo only took up about a sixth of the screen.

Something I notice a lot now after taking cinematography is the audio. Throughout the film, the audio was consistently super

clean, even if he was out in an open area. Very rarely did they add ambient noise, like cars passing. It was generally focused on just what he’s saying and what Samantha is saying to him, almost like the audience is in his head and just paying attention to what he is paying attention to. During the flashbacks/memories, however, there was only a bit of audio, if there was any at all. Often times, there was a discussion between Theo and Samantha over the memories because he is discussing the memories with her. The music was also very fitting, as all the music seemed to reflect how Theo was feeling. Towards the end of the movie, there was a really sad moment (I won’t tell you why), but there was a happy feeling to the song they put over it, and that reminded me of what Pixar does to make their emotional scenes even more emotional. They take a happy tune that you heard somewhere in the film before, and then use the same tune when showing the audience a sad scene, so the audience connects the happy and sad moments to create even more emotion! Something striking to me was the difference between Samantha’s voice and the voice from the old earbud. Samantha was female, had a sort of airy and real tone to her voice while the male voice from the earbud was computerized and monotone. At one point in the film, Samantha and Theo are in some sort of argument, and Theo was making tea. As the conversation got tenser, as the audience could tell something was wrong, the teapot started whistling. This was the only true sign of symbolism I picked up on.

The dialogue was also interesting to me because there was an obvious choice the screenwriter made when writing the

dialogue between Theo and Samantha, and Theo and everyone else. The conversations between Theo and Samantha felt so real, like they were dating and discovering every little thing about each other. There was also a difference in dialogue between when Theo was having online sex with a girl he didn’t know, representing them as two people who were just lonely and needed someone to get off with them. However, when Theo was having “online” “sex” with Samantha for the first time, they sounded like two people who truly loved each other. It wasn’t just about the sex, it was about discovering each other and being with each other (which is ironic because she doesn't… actually… exist). Theo knows Samantha personally and emotionally, he was just using her for his own personal pleasure. One note I had for the dialogue was for a specific line at the end of the movie, Theo says “You’re mine or you’re not mine”, to which Samantha responded, “I’m yours and I’m not yours”. I had to stop and repeat the line to Jarrett because he didn’t pick up on the difference between the two lines the first time. If I was directing, I would have asked Scarlet Johanson (who plays Samantha) to repeat the line, but put a little more emphasis on the “and” so that people could plainly hear the difference.

The set design was really interesting for this film. It featured colored windows in Theo’s workplace, colored lights both at his

home and around the city, as well as some differently shaped lights in the bar that he went to for his date. The computers also looked very different from our computers today, however, to me they seemed to look like they’re from the 90s, or at least that is what they were modeled after. All in all, the set design was well done because it made the film look like it was in the future, as well as being centered around technology being a daily part of everyone’s life.

All in all, this movie was more beautiful than anything else. The lighting was aesthetic and portrayed his emotions well. The

focus was always very clean, the same as the audio. However, I’d describe the storyline as… disturbing. This film reminded me a lot of Black Mirror, technology taking over lives and changing them in scary ways. Honestly, this film seemed like Black Mirror mixed with a bad chick flick. I got bored with the movie pretty quickly, the story felt somehow cliche, it got repetitive. To be frank, I think they could have shaved off at least another half an hour of it (it was a two-hour movie). I would recommend this movie to anyone who just wants to study the lighting and cinematography, but if you’re looking for a good story then look elsewhere.